2 get death for murder

Silchar, Jan. 7: The Karimganj district and sessions court today awarded death sentence to two persons for murdering Ahrar Ahmed, 20, alias Naz, a student of Karimganj College, on November 19, 2011.

Judge Kamalendu Choudhury passed the sentence this afternoon.

The court had convicted the six accused in the case on January 4.

According to court sources, the death sentences were awarded to Selim Ahmed, 30, a petty criminal and extortionist, and his accomplice, Hifjur Rahaman, 29, a motor mechanic.

Two among the six accused, Hossain Ahmed and Raju Ahmed, were given life sentences while the remaining two, Rajani Talukdar and Sultan Ahmed, were awarded 10 years' rigorous imprisonment.

This is one of the fastest court judgments in the district.

The sources said the hearings in the case started after Naz's businessman father and AIUDF leader, Gazi Toafel Ahmed, 62, was also murdered in their ancestral home at Bhanga village in Karimganj district on the Indo-Bangladesh border on July 6 last year.

Police said the same group of the criminals, who had earlier figured in the murder of Naz, was involved in the murder of Ahmed.

All the six accused are from Bhanga village, an area famous for betelnut cultivation and smuggling across the international border.

Involved in the petty crimes like theft, robbery and extortion for the past few years, the gang had masterminded the murder.

Naz was lured by accused for a rendezvous in Bhanga-Badarpur area on the day of his murder. He was drugged and murdered at Mansangan village near Bhanga and his body buried there under cover of darkness. The gang then demanded Rs 12 lakh from the family promising his release, although Naz was already dead by that time.

The police recovered his corpse on November 25, 2011, following an investigation into the murder.

Efforts to trace the criminals gathered momentum and all the perpetrators were picked up one after the other.

Selim and Hifzur had sneaked into Belonia block in South Tripura but the Karimganj police managed to arrest them there.

Altogether 13 accused were on trial, but the court released seven of them in an interim judgment passed on January 4.

A total of 29 persons were cross-examined by the court during the course of the trial.

Investigation into the murder of Naz's father, Gazi Tofail Ahmed, the owner of a gas agency in Ramkrishnanagar in the district, is now expected to gather momentum.

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